Name: ________________________ Per.

_____ Date: ___________

Poetry Terms and Definitions

1. poetry - writing that expresses emotions of writer

2. lyric poetry - a song-like poem that tells a story
3. narrative poetry - poem that tells a story
4. haiku - Japanese poem of 17 syllables
5. limerick - humorous poem with specific rhyme scheme
6. ballad - poem to express a poet’s thoughts/feelings
7. free verse - poetry with no rules
8. simile - comparison that uses “like” or “as”
9. metaphor - direct comparison between two unlike things
10. hyperbole - an extreme exaggeration
11. personification - giving human characteristics to inanimates
12. repetition - repeated use of a sound, word, phrase
13. rhyme scheme - pattern of rhyming words at lines’ ends
14. alliteration - repetition of consonant sounds
15. assonance - words that have the same vowel sounds
16. consonance - repetition of consonant sounds at middle/end of words
17. onomatopoeia - words that imitate a sound
18. rhythm - repeated patter of beats, or stresses
19. stanza - group of lines in a poem
20. white space - spaces in a poem where no words are
21. symbolism - represents a person, image, idea, or concept
22. form - the way a poem looks on the page, its shape
23. theme - the message the poet gives the reader
24. line - may or may not be sentences
25. cinquain - a five line poem
26. couplet - a pair of lines in a poem that usually rhyme
27. concrete - also known as shape poetry; the words make a picture
28. quatrain - a stanza or poem consisting of four lines